I want to be able to automatically re-image workstations but I'm afraid of losing a user's data

Articles and Tips: qna

01 Mar 2004

I want to be able to automatically re-image workstations but I'm afraid of losing a user's data. Can ZENworks help me?

While there is never a complete guarantee of being able to restore all the user's data, use the following shell script in a workstation image object to back up the user's machine to the network and then restore an image:

#!/bin/bash
# First, get the name of the Windows workstation from ZISD. 
This gives a unique name for the image export 
ComputerName=$(zisedit NetBIOSName)
# Next, back up the image to a file named the NetBIOS name of the machine
img mp $PROXYADDR
//$PROXYADDR/DATA/Images/$ComputerName
# Now restore the good image to the machine if the process of backing
up the image was successful
if $?=0 then
img rp $PROXYADDR //$PROXYADDR/DATA/Images/BASEIMG.ZMG
fi

This script works as long as the server specified by $PROXYADDR can be reached and is running the Image Proxy (IMGSERV.NLM). You can also control whether an existing image of the same name should be overwritten by modifying the security tab in the Imaging Policy associated with the image server.

* Originally published in Novell Connection Magazine

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